The Weight of Small Things

One Does What One Can

A stretch of days at Albion turns deeply inward as the Felonist immerses herself in Richard Rohr, Anne Lamott, Iyanla Vanzant, and Thich Nhat Hanh, filling her journal with the ideas that begin reshaping her understanding of success, identity, faith, and self worth. She wrestles with capitalism, patriarchy, white male hegemony and radical dependency while delving into the compulsions that once drove her life — to be successful, to be right, to be powerful — and begins to imagine what it might mean to let them go. She prays, talks with Jerry, dreams in symbols, consults the Tarot, and reads until her mind cannot absorb another word. And then Lamott’s story about a sparrow doing the necessary – “one does what one can” -- steadies her in the middle of everything she cannot control. One Does What One Can captures a woman trying to rebuild her inner world while her outer life dissolves around something as small and seemingly ridiculous as a forgotten christening dress.

Low Blow

In this episode, the Felonist moves through agrinding stretch of Albion life marked by sleepless nights, snoring dorms, denied programs, IRS visits, head colds, and the constant ache of missing her daughter. She studies charisms, dreams in symbols, fights for a non‑smokingdorm, and tries to hold onto faith even as doubt and despair press in. A move to a single cube brings a rare breath of relief — a part of a window and a bed with springs — but the emotional weight doesn’t lift. She reads obsessively,filling her journal with passages from Anne Lamott and Iyanla Vanzant as she tries to understand how she became who she is, and who she might still become. And then, when she reaches her lowest point, the divorce papers arrive. LowBlow captures a woman thinking, fighting, praying, arguing, analyzing, and writing her way through the relentless machinery of prison — only to be hit by the one blow for which she could never be truly ready.

Sad and Tired, Tired and Sad

In this episode, The Felonist moves through three weeksdefined by two words that echo again and again in her Albion journals: sad and tired. The emotional landscape is anything but quiet — it’s a storm of homesickness, spiritual doubt, poison ivy, sleepless nights, longing for her daughter, and the kind of heartache that spills into tears and curses hurled atGod. Yet even in the chaos, she keeps writing, keeps searching, and keeps trying to make meaning out of the ache. Sad and Tired, Tired and Sad captures the relentless internal war that prison ignites — a battle fought with tears, longing, fury, and the stubborn, involuntary resilience that keeps a person alive even when she can’t see a reason to be.

A Hoe Is a Garden Tool

As the Felonist settles deeper into life at Albion, she wrestles with the meaning of love — how to practice it, protect it, and survive it inside a women’s prison. Between reading Thomas Merton and Corinthians, homesickness, and the grind of her prison programming, she searches for the “bright line” between surrender and self‑preservation. And in the middle of all that soul‑work, one offhand comment in the unit bathroom — “I think I whacked my nose with a hoe” — sparks a tense, funny misunderstanding that reminds her just how quickly language can turn volatile behind bars.

Uncrushed and Unintimidated

The Felonist continues her early days at Albion, still riding the shockwave of the “cork popping” healing that left her clearer, lighter, and unexpectedly connected to something bigger than herself. As she moves through Phase One, she’s writing nonstop, walking miles, praying deeply, and rediscovering her humor and problem‑solving instincts. Between beginning her work assignments, deep hunger, long talks with other women, and the grounding presence of the writings of Katharine Graham and Rita Mae Brown, she starts to feel something she hasn’t felt in nearly a year: uncrushed, unintimidated, and unexpectedly hopeful.